1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automatic washers and more particularly to an improved rollover agitation system for use in a vertical axis automatic washer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In vertical axis washers the agitator is generally provided with radial vanes near the bottom of the agitator which, when moved with the agitator in an oscillatory manner cause a toroidal movement of water within the wash basket to result in a turnover of the clothes load within the wash basket. It has been found that an increase in the turnover rate assists in improving the wash performance of the washer.
There have been a number of attempts to increase rollover rate within an automatic washer including forming the skirt portion of the agitator, which is the portion directly below the radially extending vanes, to deflect the clothes outwardly and upwardly to assist in the toroidal movement. U.S. Pat. No. 1,691,544 discloses a device having a vertical agitator with a plurality of radially extending flexible vanes and a skirt which extends away from the center post of the agitator in a downwardly and outwardly direction and then changes direction to an outwardly and upwardly direction toward the radial ends of the vanes. Thus, clothes coming in contact with the skirt would be directed outwardly and upwardly away from the vanes. The wash tub has a shape which complements the shape of the skirt in order to prevent clothes from flowing beneath the skirt.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,781,774 discloses a vertical agitator having a skirt portion that also has an upwardly and outwardly directed distal end which is received within a depression in the tub bottom wall such that the tub bottom wall is shaped somewhat complementarily to the skirt.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,728,744 also discloses a similarly shaped agitator skirt positioned within a wash tub which has a bottom wall configured to receive the agitator skirt. U.S. Pat. RE 18,928 discloses another vertical agitator with a skirt having an upwardly and outwardly extending distal end received within a depression in the washer tub bottom wall.
Since most vertical axis washers presently do not utilize an agitator skirt having an upwardly directed outer end, the wash tubs and baskets presently utilized are not formed specifically for such a configured skirt. Thus, in order to accomodate such a skirt, the prior art suggests that the bottom wall of the wash basket or wash tub be reconfigured to be shaped complementarily to the skirt. This, of course, would prevent such an agitator from being retrofitted into existing washers. Also, it would result in a major tooling and engineering cost to redesign wash tubs and wash baskets to accomodate an agitator skirt so configured.